The Center Cannot Hold

The conductor nodded approval. "One thing I always got to give you, Cinci

"Thank you kindly." To Cinci

Getting to the Capitol took only a few minutes; it lay not far south of the railroad yards-like them, on the east side of the Des Moines River, across the river from Cinci

Men in fancy suits, bright silk neckties, and expensive homburgs-legislators, lawyers, lobbyists-climbed the stairs to the Capitol's front entrance. Times might be hard, but men of that stripe seldom suffered. They were, of course, uniformly white. Cinci

A white man in an outfit almost identical to his own came over to the truck, clipboard in hand. "How you doin', Cinci

"Not too bad, Lou." Even after most of a decade in Des Moines, calling a white man by his first name still wasn't something Cinci

"Damn cold weather makes my wound ache." Lou set a hand on his haunch. "If I'd known getting shot in the ass would stick with me so long, I wouldn't've left it up there for them Confederate sons of bitches to aim at. I'd've stuck my head up instead-ain't like I got the brains to worry about gettin' 'em blown out." He pointed to the truck. "So what the hell you got for us this time?"

"Office furniture," Cinci

" 'Bout time that shit started gettin' here," Lou declared. "All them fancy-pants bastards in there who waste our money been bellyachin' like you wouldn't believe about how their goddamn desk drawers squeak and they can't screw their secretaries on the old swivel chairs." Lou respected nothing and nobody, least of all the elected and appointed officials of the great state of Iowa.

Cinci

Lou laughed and flourished his clipboard, which made the papers on it flutter. "Listen, pal, this here is state business. I got more papers'n you do, and you can take that to the bank. Ain't nobody in the goddamn world got more papers'n you need to do state business, unless maybe it's them cocksuckers in Philly."

Again, Cinci

Once Cinci

"Let the mice chew 'em up-what the hell you think?" Lou answered. He raised his voice to a full-throated bellow: "Ivan! Paddy! Luigi! Get your asses over here, and get this crap outa my buddy's truck! You think he's got all day?" The workmen descended on the truck. Lou pulled a flask from his hip pocket-the opposite side from his war wound. "Want a snort?"

Iowa was a dry state that took being dry very, very seriously. That didn't stop liquor from getting made there or smuggled in. Cinci

"I'm go

"He don't like you in particular, or he don't like nobody?" Cinci

Lou asked, "You got the whole kit and caboodle here, or is there more of this shit back on the train?"

"There's more, plenty more. Some o' them fellers should be bringin' it any time. Soon as you get me unloaded, I'm goin' back, see if I can get me another load."

"I'll give you another slug of this stuff when you get back." Lou patted the pocket with the flask.

"Damn good reason to stay away," Cinci

J onathan Moss wasn't used to getting shaken awake at two in the morning. "Wuzzat?" he said muzzily. He wasn't used to waking up under any circumstances without a steaming cup of coffee or three at his elbow to make the transition easier.

Laura's voice, however, turned out to do the job well enough: "Jonathan, you'd better take me to the hospital now, because the pains are only four minutes apart, and they're getting stronger."

"Jesus!" Moss sat bolt upright. "Why didn't you tell me a while ago?"

His wife shrugged. "I've watched plenty of cows and sows and ewes give birth. I know what happens, as well as you can till it happens to you. I wasn't going anywhere much. Now I am-and so we'd better get moving."

"Right," he said. They'd packed a bag for her a couple of days earlier. He had clothes draped over the chair, ready to throw on. As he got out of bed, he gave her a kiss. "Congratulations, sweetheart. You're saving us some money."

"I'm not doing it on purpose, believe me," Laura said.

"I know." The lawyerly part of Moss' mind operated automatically. "But if Junior'd waited another week and a half, it would've been 1933, and then we couldn't write him off this year's taxes."

Having doffed her long wool nightgown, Laura was putting on a long wool maternity dress. A tent would have had no more material and been no less stylish. She draped a coat over the dress; it was snowing outside. "Somehow or other, taxes aren't my biggest worry right this minute," she said, her voice as chilly as the weather.

Moss lit a cigarette and patted her on the bottom. "Really, babe? Why is that, do you think?" She did her best to make her glare withering. He did his best not to wither.

Going downstairs was another adventure. He carried the case in one hand and held his wife's hand with the other. She had to pause on the stairs while a labor pain passed. He didn't want to think about what would happen if she fell. He didn't want to, and so he didn't. He did, however, let out a loud sigh of relief after they made it to the lobby, went down a few more stairs, and reached the sidewalk.

His breath would have smoked without the cigarette. When he inhaled, the air cut like knives. In conversational tones, Laura remarked, "The auto had better start, don't you think?"

"What, you don't want to hang around waiting for a cab?" Moss said, which earned him another glare. He opened the Bucephalus' door and carefully handed her in, then flung the overnight bag onto the back seat.

He slid behind the wheel and slammed his door shut. That got him out of the icy wind. When he turned the key, he uttered something between a prayer and a curse. Past two on a cold winter night… Would the engine turn over?

The starter made a grinding noise. The engine didn't start. He tried again. Still no luck. "Come on, you goddamn fucking son of a bitch," he growled, wishing for a groundcrew man to spin the prop.